


Slave of Fear

by StarStrom21



Category: Ghost - Mystery Skulls (Music Video), Mystery Skulls (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 23:30:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3227609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarStrom21/pseuds/StarStrom21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skeleton ghosts, easily scared orange men, and enslavement spells aren't a good combination</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slave of Fear

Arthur didn’t open his eyes, he didn’t want to. He knew exactly where he’d be if he did and the last thing he wanted to see was another cultist holding some ornate weapon above his head and reading some gibberish about a great demon. However, when he heard no chanting or vows to honor a great master with the blood of an innocent curiosity got the better of him. He opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn’t. Just inches away from his face was a green and black swirling figure that vaguely looked human.   
Great the demon was already here. So then what was he here for? He really hoped that it wasn’t to be this thing’s dinner. He tried to move a way but unsurprisingly he found his wrists and neck were chained to a large wooden post in the middle of the room. His heart began to race as his thoughts jumbled. He needed to get away before this thing did what it wanted with him.   
A sharp gasp escaped him when he felt a cold hand on his chest. Oh goodness this thing was touching him. He clenched his eyes shut not wanting to see what the demon was going to do with him.  
“Aw yes such strong fear. The spell will work very fast with this one,” A dark, decidedly feminine, voice said, which he assumed was the demon from how close it was. The hand then pushed harder and he let out a grunt. Oh for the love of whatever holy being there was stop touching him. “And such a strong sole too, a few cracks here and there but easily fixed once his useless body is out of the way. Yes he’ll make a fine slave.”  
The hand went away but Arthur was anything but comforted by that. If anything he was even more terrified. This thing wanted to make him her slave, which sounded as bad as if not worse than what cults had tried to do with him.   
The next think Arthur was aware of was the sound of the demon’s voice chanting in some strange language that Vivi would probably recognize but he didn’t. However, that wasn’t what was on his mind right now. He pushed against his restrains but all that did was make his neck and wrist sore. Oh god he didn’t want to be this thing’s slave.   
The demon stopped chanting and Arthur felt the hand on his cheek now. He shivered but kept his eyes closed.   
“Look at me,” the demon’s voice ordered but Arthur only shook his head. He felt the hand tighten and heard the demon growl but before it could do anything the sound of a door being slammed open filled the room. Arthur felt a sudden heat rush passed him and the demon’s hold disappeared.  
Hesitantly he opened an eye and his gaze landed on a ghost in a black suit and a skull for a head. He smiled in relief even though he was still scared out of his mind. “Lewis,” he breathed.  
The ghost turned to him and pressed his hands to the chains that were holding him to the post. They disintegrated in magenta light and Arthur lifted his hand to rub at his sore neck. He didn’t feel any blood so it hadn’t cut into his skin that was good. He looked down at his right wrist and was happy to see that his wrist band had prevented any real injury.  
“NO!!” the demon yelled, getting up from where Lewis’ flames had sent her flying, “You ruined it. He was supposed to belong to me.”  
The demon looked ready to attack when a wave of blue light hit her. Standing in the doorway was Vivi and her dog Mystery. Her hands glowed with the same light that had hit the demon. An exorcism spell Arthur guessed. He was proven right when the demon shrieked and faded away after being hit a second time.  
“That should take care of her, you ok Art?” Vivi asked looking to Arthur.  
“Yeah I’m fine. That crazy demon tried to cast an enslavement spell on me but Lewis interrupted it before it was finished,” he answered.  
Vivi frowned and went over to the book, “Still better if we take this with us, even an unfinished spell can be dangerous. How far did she get?”  
Arthur shrugged, “Not sure, just know she finished chanting and wanted me to look at her.”  
Vivi nodded, “Alright, I’ll translate this when we get back to the mansion and see if we need to fix anything.”  
“Right, let’s go home then,” Lewis said. There was no argument from Arthur.  
The next day things started as they normally did. Arthur woke up of the sound to Lewis getting up and making breakfast and he groaned. Of all the things Lewis had to keep from when he was alive it had to be that he was a morning person. He pulled the pillow over his head hoping to get a few more minutes of sleep before Lewis called them for breakfast. He was then awoken by the sound of the door being knocked and Lewis’ voice calling through the door.  
He was about to protest when he paused, there was something off about Lewis’ voice. That wasn’t his normal tone he used when trying to get him up, that was do-what-I-say-and-no-room-for-argument tone. What? Had he slept through Lewis’ first several attempts or something?  
Deciding that it was best not to risk it he quickly got out of bed and scrambled to the door. When he opened it he found a surprised looking skeleton ghost looking down at him. Why was he surprised? Arthur knew better than to make Lewis mad, even over something as small as breakfast.  
Lewis then smiled, “Well that’s a nice change of pace.” He then floated over to Vivi’s room and knocked to let her know breakfast was ready.  
Wait what? Lewis wasn’t annoyed and Vivi was still not up yet? Maybe Arthur had just imagined Lewis using a harsher tone. Well he was up now so might as well go down to eat.  
The rest of the day went pretty normal until dinner when Lewis made chicken and squash. Arthur wasn’t really a big fan of squash so when Lewis wasn’t looking he set the plate on the floor for Mystery to have them. However, it seemed that he wasn’t as sneaky as he thought because when he looked back up he saw Lewis glaring down at him and he jumped.  
“Arthur, what have I told you about giving your food to Mystery? Now finish your meal,” Lewis told him.  
Arthur flinched, Lewis had never been this angry at him for skipping his vegetables before. Still he didn’t want to test the ghost and quickly snatched his plate up before Mystery could get to it and started eating the squash that was on his plate. Once he was done Arthur decided to go to bed early. Maybe by tomorrow Lewis would be over whatever mood he was in.  
Unfortunately that didn’t seem to be the case. Arthur was not only woken by an angry ghost banging on his door but he’d been yelled at five times for things that normally would have only gotten an eye roll and had been glared at so much that it was as if he was blaming Arthur for killing him all over again. By the end of the day Arthur decided that Lewis must have been mad at him for something, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of what.  
The next day Arthur decided that it was best to give his ghostly friend some space. Give him some time until he was cooled down enough to tell him what was wrong and they could talk it out like they both promised to do from now on. Too bad Arthur’s luck never seemed to work out that way.  
Arthur was walking down the hall to Vivi’s room to ask if she’d found anything about the spell that had been cast on him two days earlier when a deadbeat came down the other direction. It didn’t appear to see him so he stepped to the side to avoid it phasing through him. He always hated that feeling. However, as he took a step away from the tiny ghost he didn’t notice that he bumped a small table until the vase on it fell and smashed on the ground.  
Arthur panicked. He didn’t stop to listen to the rational part of his mind that said Lewis didn’t care about the vase and he can fix any part of his mansion with just a thought. All he could think was that he broke something of the large scary skeleton ghost that was angry at him for some reason. Just then he hears the sound of Lewis calling his name. It sounded angry, really, really angry. Without thinking Arthur bolted to his room and closes the door.  
“Arthur?” the skeleton ghost looked around the corner and mimicked a sigh. Arthur had been acting very strange the last two days and now he was avoiding him. Something was definitely wrong. He saw the shattered vase on the ground and frowned, wondering what happened. Still that wasn’t important to him right now. Waving his hand over the shattered glass to make it dissolve into magenta smoke he floated over to Vivi’s room and knocked on the door. When he heard Vivi’s voice shout “Come in,” he did just that and opened the door.  
“Hey Vivi, any progress with translating the spell?” he asked.  
“Yeah I’ve got most of it done actually, why?” Vivi responded.  
“Well I think it’s affecting Arthur. Every time I tell him to do something he flinches as if I yelled at him or something and now he’s avoiding me,” Lewis explained.  
Vivi frowned, “I was afraid of this. The spell is meant to enslave a person by making that person so scared of the caster that they have no will to rebel against any order given. Since you interrupted the spell Arthur is now scared of you.”  
Lewis gave a worried expression at this news, “Is there a way to break the spell?”  
“I haven’t got that far yet, but it’s probably a good idea to find Arthur and get him to calm down. If the spells been going this long without any intervention than he might be close to panicking about now and apparently the more scared he is the harder it is to break the spell,” Vivi told him.  
“Alright I’ll go look for him, you finish translating that spell and find a way to reverse this,” Lewis said.  
Vivi nodded and watched as her boyfriend went off to find Arthur. The first place Lewis went was of course Arthur’s room. He was about to come in when he realized that if he was the one scaring Arthur then barging into his room was probably not going to help. Instead he lightly knocked on the door.  
“Hey Art, it’s ok I’m not mad at you. Please come out,” he tried to keep his voice as calm as possible, not wanting to scare the blond any more.  
Unfortunately, the ghost’s efforts seemed to have the opposite effect. The spell was affecting Arthur’s perception of reality so now anything Lewis did only managed to scare the man farther. The light knocks sounded like deafening pounds and no matter how soft and gentle Lewis made his voice Arthur only heard angry shouting.   
Arthur was curled up in the corner trembling like a leaf, believing that Lewis was extremely mad at him. The last thing the man wanted was to face the ghost but at hearing Lewis tell him to come out he couldn’t stop himself from going to the door and hesitantly opening it.  
Lewis looked down at Arthur and a horrible stab of guilt slammed into his chest. The poor man was trembling all over and his eyes were so full of fear he looked close to crying. All Lewis wanted to do was to scoop the man up in a hug and tell him everything was going to be ok, anything to get Arthur to calm down, but as soon as he reached out to him Arthur flinched as if he expected to be hurt. That just broke Lewis’ heart even more.  
“Arthur pleas it’s ok, I’m not going to hurt you. Please don’t be scared,” Lewis pleaded.  
The reaction that came after was far from what he’d expected. As soon as the words left him Arthur let out a pained cry and collapsed to the ground. Lewis’ eyes went wide and he quickly scooped the smaller male into his arms.   
Arthur didn’t know what was going on. All he’d seen was Lewis glaring down at him before saying something and suddenly a pain like nothing he’d experienced racked his body. It had felt like claws had dug in all over his body and had been all yanked through his chest at once. He knew Lewis was mad but he’d never thought he’d be mad enough to hurt him like this. The only think he was aware of at that moment was that Lewis had picked him up and all he could think that Lewis wasn’t done with him yet. Tears streamed down the man’s face terrified out of his mind thinking what Lewis was going to do to him.  
Lewis didn’t know what to do. He’d come to help calm Arthur down but all he seemed to be doing was making it worse. So he just sat there with Arthur in his arms not daring to move or say a word.  
Just then Vivi came running down the hall, looking panicked. “Lewis, I finished translating the spell. Whatever you do don’t tell him not to be afraid of you,” she panted.  
Lewis’ eye’s widened knowing that’s exactly what he’d done. “Why? What did I do to him?” he asked franticly.  
Vivi frowned realizing her warning was too late, “It’s the one order he can’t obey and so it hurts him. I mean really hurts him, badly. We have to reverse this now or we might not be able to.”  
Lewis nodded, “What do you need me to do?”  
“Leave Arthur here, I’ll try to get him as calm as I can while you go get the book and my notes,” she told him.  
Lewis didn’t argue, he placed Arthur down on his bed and then hurriedly flew to Vivi’s room. Vivi sat on the bed next to him as she waited for the ghost to come back. She placed a hand on his shoulder and spoke in a soothing voice.  
“Shh it’s ok Arthur, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” she told him.  
Arthur opened his eyes and looked around breathing heavily. “Viv?” he asked, looking around, “Where’s Lewis?”  
“In my room, I told him to get something,” She answered, at seeing him flinch she quickly added, “Don’t worry he’s not going to hurt you, I promise.”  
Arthur whimpered, “But he’s mad at me.”  
Vivi held back a sigh and moved to pull Arthur into a hug. “No he’s not. You’re just under a spell, remember? Nothing you see from Lewis is real,” she explained.  
Arthur frowned but he did start to calm down. That is until Lewis came back and he was right back to shaking all over from fear.  
Lewis looked down ashamed, but Vivi quickly assured him it was just the spell. It still didn’t make it any easier to know Arthur was scared of him.   
“Alright, unfortunately you’re going to have to be pretty close to him in order for this to work. I have to focus on both of you while I cast it and that’s easier the closer you are,” Vivi said.  
Lewis nodded, though didn’t like it knowing that his presence alone was making Arthur terrified, coming closer would only make it worse. However, if it helped break the spell all together then it was worth it. At least he hoped it was.  
He floated over to the bed trying not to look at Arthur. He didn’t want to see his terrified face as he got closer. Arthur on the other hand had his eyes locked on the ghost the whole time, white hot fear growing with every foot closer he got. He tried to remember what Vivi told him about it just being a spell, but it was hard to believe Lewis didn’t want to hurt him when all he could see was the ghost’s hate filled glare looking down at him.   
“Alright that’s close enough, just stay like that,” Vivi said before looking down at the book and her notes and started to chant.  
Arthur remained a trembling curled up ball for most of it and Lewis worried that it might not be working. Then when the counter spell ended Arthur’s eyes closed and he fell limp.  
Lewis nearly panicked and he moved to try and wake him up only for Vivi to stop him.  
“Wait he needs this. The last few days were stressful and the book did say this might happen,” she told him as she placed a hand on his arm, “I’ll have Mystery look after him until he wakes up. Let’s go wait downstairs.”  
Lewis took another look at Arthur before nodding and leaving with Vivi.  
A few hours later Arthur opened an eye. He looked down to see Mystery curled up next to him. He smiled and pets the dog as he tried to remember why he’d fallen asleep. Then he remembered and tensed, but he soon calmed down also recalling that Vivi had said it was just a spell. Still he didn’t want to find out that wasn’t true and Lewis really had been mad at him.  
Eventually he decided that he wouldn’t find out anything if he just lay in bed all day and got up. He found Lewis with Vivi downstairs in the living room watching TV. Lewis was the first one to see him and looked up. Arthur forced himself not to flinch at that and looked to fine Lewis wasn’t glaring at him like he’d feared. Instead there was a lot of worry and… guilt? So it really was just a spell, suddenly Arthur felt horrible for feeling so scared of him, he knew Lewis would never want to hurt him.  
Vivi then noticed that Arthur was there too and then looked from him to Lewis. “I think I’ll leave you two to talk,” she looked to Arthur again, “If that’s ok with you.”  
“Yeah,” Arthur nodded, “I know it was just a spell now.”  
Vivi smiled, “Good.” And with that she left leaving the two males to talk.  
There was an awkward silence for a bit before Lewis decided to break it. He was about to speak when Arthur interrupted him.  
“I’m sorry.”  
Lewis looked to the man in confusion. “Sorry? For what? It was a spell, I’m not mad at you for anything.”  
Arthur shook his head. “That’s just it, it was a spell I should have known that you would never try to hurt me. I should have known that you wouldn’t act like that that if you were angry, I should have just said something.”  
Arthur was cut off at feeling large arms wrap around him in a hug and he stopped to look up. Lewis had gotten up from the couch and was now hugging him.  
“You stop that right now ok? Arthur you were under a spell you couldn’t help but be afraid. I should have realized that I was scaring you, but that doesn’t matter right now. What does matter is that the spell is broken and you’re ok now,” Lewis said.  
Arthur smiled and hugged him back.  
Later Vivi came into the living room to see her two boys playing video games and laughing. She smiled; things were back to the way they were supposed to be.


End file.
